


The Road to Haven

by norabombay



Category: Valdemar Series - Mercedes Lackey
Genre: Gen, Herald Myste makes a cameo appearance, Hertsai don't deal well with snow, If the roman's could do it, Valdemar needs civil engineering, Why can't Valdemar?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 10:50:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2809631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/norabombay/pseuds/norabombay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Companions of Valdemar choose the people the Kingdom needs most. </p><p>Sometimes what the Kingdom needs is logistics.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Road to Haven

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hydrangea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hydrangea/gifts).



_Kerplunk!_

Mallory tripped over an unseen rock on the Valdemar side of the portal, landing in a crumpled pile in the snow. She concentrated on keeping the portal open, while listening for the rest of her team to come through.

“Clear!” shouted someone.

She flailed and rolled over in the deep snow to get a clear line of sight. “Time to take this thing down while I can still move” she thought. She gestured as she started to pluck away the ley lines powering the portal, and closed the gate with an audible pop. “Why they can’t build a decent road to this country…I should really get out of this snow before I slow……..” was her last thought as she passed out.

Hertasi are magical lizard people, created by the great Sorcerer Maur and since then making their home in the more magical parts of Velgarth. Like the lizards they were constructed from, they are cold-blooded. And Mallory, like all of her people, did not deal at all well with snow.

The largest population of Hertasi is in Iftel, and it was Iftel that Mallory and her human companions, Jay’kh, and Cangeree, were coming to Valdemar to represent. The constant disruption caused by the Mage Storms had finally settled but it left the ley lines of magic a bedraggled mess. Gates, the way that everything traveled and everything moved were almost impossible to make on a regular basis. The roads of course, were unspeakably bad and not a good option for trade or news or anything. Iftel needed a way to get goods and that way ran through their southern neighbor. A crew of mages and road builders was the perfect group for trade negotiations.

 All of which led to a very great deal of surprise when the sound of silvery bells rang out and a giant white mare with a silver mane bounded through the snow. She stopped at the vividly colored and blue scaled lump that was Mallory, grabbed her magenta coat in her teeth, and tossed Mallory on to her back.  Mallory stayed put thanks to something that _had_ to be magic, as they bounded away at a speed no mortal horse could match.

“Hey! That horse just stole Mallory! We need to follow and get her back” Jay’kh was waving her arms in the direction of the bounding horse.

“There’s no way we will catch up. Not in this snow, with these roads.” Cangeree was picking up Mallory’s abandoned pack. “That was a Companion. Magic horses in Valdemar. Probably just headed towards Haven. I doubt anything bad is going to happen to Mallory.” He shrugged the pack over his shoulders, waved at Jay’kh to follow and started down the pocked and rock filled trail.

“We can’t just abandon her,” shouted Jay’kh.

“We can’t catch her either. Forget about it Jay’kh. It’s Valdemar”. And with that pair set off towards Haven.

"Five, six days of walking we should be there." Cangeree grumbled. The horse would steal the person on the team who knew how to do gates and who would offer a great deal of unsolicited advice about the quality of the local roadways.

—

Mallory’s trip to Haven was far simpler and much more pleasant than Jay’kh and Cangeree’s. Mostly because she spent the entire event completely unconscious. But when she did finally wake up, she was warm, and nestled in some astonishingly sweet smelling hay. Where she was promptly booped on the nose by a horse. A horse with the most astonishingly beautiful blue eyes, practically glowing with love.

:Chosen. Chosen. Chosen!:

“Whah”

:Chosen. Look at me, Chosen:

Mallory opened her eyes wide, and stared deeply into the horse’s depths. They weren’t animal eyes but something far deeper and more ancient, like the quartz bottom of a clear glass lake. A fellow magical creature. “Oh, hello. Who are you?”

:Ambyr, Chosen. I’m Ambyr. And I’m here to ensure that you are never lonely again:

:Ambyr? But your eyes are so blue like pretty sparklies…:

:Mallory, Chosen, I love you. But I think you may need to sleep a bit more:

The second time Mallory woke, she was in a nice warm pile, snuggled up against Ambyr and warm and awake enough to participate in the conversation. Waves of comfort and peace were practically radiating from the companion, visible as the motes of dust in the air.

“Out of everyone in Valdemar, why did you choose me? I’m just a Hertsai. I can’t go out in the cold for long, and I have just enough magic to make Gates. What makes me special?”

:You are special because you are mine. I’ve been waiting for you. If these Mage Storms hadn’t happened we would have met years ago.:

Ambyr sent an image of them, riding a circuit about Haven, speaking to a bunch of people in blue uniforms, of Mallory pointing at rocks with a pointy stick, and of them setting something on fire in the middle of a lake. :You are going to be a Herald:

“A Herald? I’m no judge. I’m not from Valdemar. I can barely ride a horse. And I’m a Hertsai”. Mallory waved her blue clawed hand at Ambyr, and settled for combing through the Companion’s silken mane.

:None of that matters. Normally, we choose Heralds when they are very young. They go through a whole process of schooling, weapons training, circuit riding, and training in the use of their powers. Then and only then do they earn their Whites and go on assignment. The system worked for us for hundreds of years.:

“What happened?”

:The Mage Storms. Magic came back to Valdemar. Now we have Herald Mages again. We choose those who are of good heart, who have gifts, and who are what Valdemar needs to survive. We have chosen a number of different adults recently:

“Different? I’m not even from Valdemar!”

:Herald Myste was one of the first chosen as an adult, she’s a historian and scribe by training. She set up a new program. Special training for Chosen adults. You will like it. Probably still have to take Geography, but you might wind up teaching a class on Gates, and we can skip the mounted combat training:

“Mounted combat? I care barely ride.”

:I can’t turn quickly enough to be of combat use, so we are a pair.:

They booped noses again.

:Valdemar needs new people and new ideas, and sometimes we don’t meet them when they are teenagers. We find our soul mates and Choose them when they pass into Valdemar, even if it means that the timing isn’t right. All of the Farseers we have saw you here, and us together.:

Mallory basked in the warmth of her Companion, who was sending light into some of the darkest spiritual holes she didn’t know existed. It was like driving a wagon down a newly graveled and graded rode, one that you didn’t realize was horrible until the muddy holes were filled.

—  
"I hate this trip. I hate this country. I want to go back to Iftel and never ever come back" Jah'kh had spent two days walking, and the outskirts of Haven were only in sight in the far far distance.

"Did you hear that? It sounds like bells" Cangeree cocked his head "You know, like the horse that took Mallory."

Which was the point when a Companion- this time with one with a white-uniformed Herald on top- skidded to a stop in front of the footsore remainder of the Iftel delegation.

"Helloooo Iftel. Mallory sent us to give you a lift the rest of the way back to the Collegium. She said to give you this." The man handed over a scroll with a familiar claw print imprinted onto the wax.

Jah'kh and Cangeree pilled their bags up on the back of the Companion and set off for a whole day more of travel on roads that were worse than even the mini mountain foot trails of Iftel.

—  
Back in Haven, Mallory had been bundled up with furs, heated stones stuck in strategic pockets. Now warmed enough for the outdoors, Ambyr was finally giving Mallory the full tour. Haven was the biggest city in Valdemar, and the home of civilization. Ring roads went out from the Palace to the rest of the city, tracing the growth over the years. Tall buildings crammed up directly to the streets, hundreds of people crammed together in urban living.

Dreadful gravel paths, the occasional stone walkway, what looked to be a bunch of wooden planks just slapped down. Mud. Couldn't forget the mud. Nothing at all up to the level of Iftel’s roads, nothing that would let people travel easily.

Mallory still hadn’t quite gotten the hang of Mindspeech, something unusual for a magical creature. Ambyr thought it might be related to shielding. Until it was fixed, she was stuck speaking aloud like she conversed with a ghost.

“Why is it so hard to travel around Haven? We are moving, but those carts and wagons are just bogged down”

:It’s just the normal market day traffic. We always get a lot of people on market days: sent Ambyr.

Mallory just went _hmmmmmmmmmmmmm_.

:Garret says that she will be here with your friends in about a half an hour.:

“Good. I need to talk to them, and explain what happened. And I think I have an idea what I’m here for.”

\------------

Several years later:

At the top of the last hill inside the Valdemar border, Mallory readjusted her new surveying whites, complete with extra pockets for equipment storage and prepared to meet the new Iftel delegation.

Next to her Ambyr was trying to adjust the ceremonial harness on her yearling son, Feris. Like all teenagers, he was too cool to be groomed by his mother. And like all mother’s, Ambyr was going to insist he comb his hair and dress appropriately for special events.

Both Ambyr and Mallory were excited to see the preparation for the ceremonial gravel laying on the first Iftel- Valdemar highway. Jay’kh and Cangeree had gone back to Iftel half a decade ago with the plans for a new system of strategic transportation corridors for the entire Iftel and Valdemar section of Velgarth.

Jay’kh had supervised the building from Iftel south, Mallory from Haven north. Mallory had the assistance of an entire group of Blues, who had been through training in the Iftel techniques of leveling ground, laying drainage and gravel, and preparing a high traffic road way. One of them had even invented a gravel sorting machine which took months off the project, sorting rocks into appropriate size categories for the drainage levels.

For her part, Mallory had opened as many gates as possible to move heavy supplies- so long as the only contents in the gate were rocks and tar, a failed gate due to a magic stormlet was not catastrophic, merely annoying. It was vastly better than trying to ferry rocks across fast moving rivers or build a suspension bridge from only one side.

Down the hill a group of bards was starting to play horns in jaunty marching tunes, and the delegations were meeting. As soon as the ceremony was over, Mallory, Ambyr and Feris were going to go on a well deserved Iftel holiday, before returning home and starting the same thing over again, only this time to Karse.

Better roads were a life time strategic project, and with any luck they would be able to reach the sea mud free by the time that Feris had children and grandchildren of his own.

**Author's Note:**

> Er, yuletide fail- this now has the actual last 100 words on it. Sorry recipient!


End file.
